Saturday, October 3, 2015

Update 2015.10.05: Correction based on the comment by +Eva Amsen: F1000Research editors do chase down reviewers to help ensure reviews. So the main real difference between F1000Research and PeerJ appears to be the price - assuming PeerJ authors post a pre-print.

A purely practical comment about point 5 in general and F1000Research price in particular. My main point is that PeerJ offers better service at lower cost (and I am not affiliated with PeerJ in any way).

Let’s take my latest paper which just got accepted in PeerJ and contrast it to how it would have worked at F1000Research

1. I submitted my draft to PeerJ PrePrints who made it available online within a day for free. It showed up on Google Scholar about a week later.

F1000Research would take about a week and cost \$1000 as it was >2500 words. On the other hand at this point it is typeset.

2. I solicit reviews on social media and by emailing select experts. There is a commenting section on PeerJ PrePrints where these reviews can be added. I got some suggestions by email but no one added comments for this particular paper.

From what I can tell the idea is much the same on F1000Research

3. I revise my manuscript and put a new version on PeerJ PrePrints with another plea for comments/reviews. Then I submit to PeerJ. PeerJ finds 2 reviewers for me, typesets the manuscript (after minor corrections in this case), publishes the reviews, provides a comment section for further review, and gets it indexes, for \$298 (in this case). Again, there is a comment sections where people can continue to review the manuscript and also the reviewers comments, which I choose to make public.

So, from where I stand I pay F1000Research \$1000 extra for guaranteed and immediate typesetting of a manuscript which may not get reviewed, while I pay PeerJ \$300 for guaranteed reviews of a manuscript which may not get typeset (if it is rejected).

I couldn’t care less about the typesetting. When I deposit my preprint I consider my work published - and I can do that for free. The remaining steps are taken mainly to be able to add it on my CV under “Peer Reviewed Publication” with additional indexing as a nice bonus.

As Gowers has shown, if you remove the typesetting this can done for \$10/paper.